exp problem

[DrwHem]

ive had this game for a long time now and i decided to play as britain. i noticed that every once in awhile one of my units will gain an exp point but after the battle it isnt there. or sometimes it is there but once i enter the next battle its gone. dose anyone know why im loosing random exp? its really damn annoying because im british and my units are that good and the only thing that i have on the romans is experience and without that ill get murdered. i have version 1.5 by the way and barbarian invasion too.

[GambleFish]

ive had this game for a long time now and i decided to play as britain. i noticed that every once in awhile one of my units will gain an exp point but after the battle it isnt there. or sometimes it is there but once i enter the next battle its gone. dose anyone know why im loosing random exp? its really damn annoying because im british and my units are that good and the only thing that i have on the romans is experience and without that ill get murdered. i have version 1.5 by the way and barbarian invasion too.

You probably merged or auto-merged your units after the battle, mixing experience with no-experience and lowering both.

[Shadows]

Besides what Al'Thor said you can lose exp when you send that unit into battle and it takes some casualties without killing any units itself. I have had units lose men to city towers (they got too close and lost men before I could pull them back) and since they didn't kill any enemies they actually lost a cheveron.

[Aemilianus]

I've had that happen to me countless times. My theory always was that units would gain experience for their kills in battle, but then after the battle the computer would do the math and then "re-evaluate" the actual experience of the full unit. I somehow thought each member of the division had an experience rating, and the average would be the division's total (just a theory with no experimental basis). Thus, losing "high experience" men would weaken the division as a whole?....just a thought....

[NobleNick]

... My theory always was that units would gain experience for their kills in battle, but then after the battle the computer would do the math and then "re-evaluate" the actual experience of the full unit. I somehow thought each member of the division had an experience rating, and the average would be the division's total ... Thus, losing "high experience" men would weaken the division as a whole?...

I think Aemilianus is on the right track. I have read (haven't verified this for myself) that experience is granted on a man-by-man basis: The unit chevron is just a summary (average) of the individuals. Therefore (and now I am guessing), the men in a unit who were left standing at the end of a battle would normally have a higher average experience than if you included men from the unit who were wounded early in the battle. At the end of the battle, many of the wounded are healed and repatriated to their unit. But, since these men are statistically likely to have less experience; when they re-join their unit, they lower the unit's average experience, maybe enough to lose a chevron. If the wounded men happened to be high experience individuals that just got unlucky in THIS battle, then you would expect that the unit experience would increase when they get repatriated; but you would also expect this to be a statistical rarity.

[Werner]

I think Aemilianus is on the right track. I have read (haven't verified this for myself) that experience is granted on a man-by-man basis: The unit chevron is just a summary (average) of the individuals. Therefore (and now I am guessing), the men in a unit who were left standing at the end of a battle would normally have a higher average experience than if you included men from the unit who were wounded early in the battle. At the end of the battle, many of the wounded are healed and repatriated to their unit. But, since these men are statistically likely to have less experience; when they re-join their unit, they lower the unit's average experience, maybe enough to lose a chevron. If the wounded men happened to be high experience individuals that just got unlucky in THIS battle, then you would expect that the unit experience would increase when they get repatriated; but you would also expect this to be a statistical rarity.

This is correct. Experience is granted on a man-by-man basis, so if you lose a few soldiers in battle, the more experienced men will remain (the less experienced men are killed) and thus the unit as a whole will have more experience. If you retrain the unit, the green soldiers will lower the total experience of the unit.

It is therefor best to merge units of equal experience level so as to keep them at that level. For example, merge two "three bronze chevron units" .

I am not sure about the wounded men that return to the unit, but it sounds possible.

My two cents.

[gardibolt]

Experimentation seems to indicate generally that soldiers who are recovered by healing come in as completely green recruits, while those who are obtained through retraining come in at the average experience level of the unit. Thus, even though the screen reports gain of an experience chevron, adding the green recruits may eliminate that or even subtract one if enough healed 0-level recruits are factored in. Bug or feature? You be the judge.

Some people have reported contrary results, though, so there may be other factors at play. Without knowing CA's formula (which they've hinted is far more complex than in MTW), we'll probably never know for certain since there are too many uncontrollable factors.

One problem in gaining experience is that your most experienced troops tend to take point, and thus are more likely to be killed (this is the cause of the suicide general problem), dropping your average experience levels.

[night_owl]

yeah i agree that sometimes happens, when your unit has gained xp and then all of a sudden at the end its taken away- i also agree witht he guys that say its cos the computer re-calculated the kills and deaths ratio- always try to merge your units, like 35 5xp chosen swordsmen with 40 4xp chosen swordsmen, as otherwise your retraining and adding rookies (unless your temples have xp bonuses)- also generals bodyguards tend to lose xp a bit, as i had a 9xp maxed out tank of a general and he had about 40 in his unit, i got about 400 kills with him in exchange for about 20 deaths, but he lost xp after the battle.... the reason is the new rookie soldiers replacing the dead experienced ones in his unit.
also always contruct temples with xp bonuses if you have the chance, it makes ahuge difference when training new troops and retrained experienced ones, i modded all temples in the game so all nations have the chance to construct such a temple, and the ones that dont choose to construct one get a good bonus on their other temples such as morale or trade bonus etc... i like to keep things fair for the little nations and weak armied ones!!